The Rise and Fall of the National Organization for Marriage

Maggie addresses her ‘villain’ role; continues her victim act

May 17, 2012, by Jeremy Hooper

During a recent appearance at Patrick Henry College, interviewer Marvin Olasky asked NOM co-founder Maggie Gallagher how it feels to live within the socio-political role she has chosen for herself. Her answer was classic Maggie. Have a listen:

First, Maggie says that when pushback is directed at her, it's not really directed at her personally, but rather "the millions of decent, loving, law-abiding Americans" who "have this view and this understanding of marriage." This is simply not true. There are millions of people who oppose same-sex marriage for their own personal reasons, but who do not work to shape the culture so that it is outwardly against LGBT partnerships (and, by logical extension, LGBT welfare). There are more than a few who, despite personal opposition, still support equal marriage in public policy because they support it as a civil right and freedom. But Maggie doesn't fit either camp. Maggie has spent decades now working to make America a place that opposes both marriage and civil unions for same-sex couples. From this issue alone, she has garnered considerable access and profit. So when someone like me responds to Maggie, more often than not I'm responding specifically to Maggie, a person who has taken on this cause in a major and often quite offensive way, and not the random person who has been duped by her rhetoric.

Then Maggie talks about gay people and what she thinks of us, portraying her feelings as being a mixed bag filled with both agreement and disagreement. But the thing is? Those of us who have a public opinion about Maggie Gallagher's work only have that opinion because of what she herself has given us. And so through this lens, when we consider that Maggie has written the being gay is “a sexual disability preventing certain individuals from participating in the normal reproductive patterns of the human species,” has admitted that she sees homosexuality as an "unfortunate thing," has equated homosexuality with "at a minimum, a sexual dysfunction much as impotence or infertility," has suggested that gays "can always control their behavior," and even made a direct call for a sitting President to give more funding to scientifically-shunned "ex-gay" research (to name just a few slights)? Well, those of us who are LGBT can only judge Maggie on her own words. These words (and others) go well beyond policy work. The potential damages go well beyond our naked ring fingers.

Then America's most prominent equal marriage opponent moves on to the real heart of the Maggie playbook: The self-victimization that she routinely denies but that all but defines her advocacy. Maggie asserts that her role in this debate is caused by the human need for a bad guy. She said it is "driven by the need to see the people who are opposing what you think as good as the villain, otherwise you don't have the right drama." This is deeply offensive in two ways. [1] It is an attempt to play the innocent and take all onus off the decades of work (and most gay people would say harms) that Maggie has put out to the world; [2] It is an attempt to place the burden on others, as if it's those who have a problem with Maggie's years of work who have the real problem (e.g. "I'm sorry you're upset" as opposed to "I'm sorry I upset you."). This is a total shirking of responsibility!

As anyone would expect, Maggie then parlays all of this into a claim that we are moving toward an America where people like her "may have to be afraid." This is the kind of thing we equality activists usually regard with an eye roll, but something that really deserves more response than that. What Maggie is doing with her common "they'll call you a racist or a bigot" claim is fostering a multi-purpose meme that (a) denies the deep and demonstrable harms that LGBT people face because of inequality, (b) attempts to flip this civil rights movement's script so that discrimination is the worthy cause, and (c) acts again as if whatever negative attention someone like Maggie might receive is completely undeserved and uninformed by what she herself has chosen to do. I mean, come on with that noise! We are talking about a well-paid person who, in this very same interview, said that loving, committed same-sex couples only want marriage because they see it as a symbol:

Yes, Maggie—crude, offensive ideas like this will be greeted with more and more repulsion as the years go by. Deservedly so. But that does not mean every single person who once opposed marriage equality will be forever branded with certain labels, or that an America with fifty state and federal marriage equality should or will become a scary place for anyone! Most marriage equality activists are quite understanding and highly welcoming of those who come to a place of respect (or even just basic tolerance) for our relationships. And even those who remain opposed? The vast majority of people on the pro-equality side are completely fine with that! In fact, our guiding belief has always been that people have the right to personally oppose us, they just don't have the right to deny us in public policy in ways that hamper our deserved freedoms!

But the clear difference between Maggie and the everyday opponent of marriage equality is that Maggie, her outsized platform, and her NOM homebase are not only trying to change public policy, but are actually working to change every element of culture surrounding this marriage debate. She puts out these tiny cuts on a daily basis with an obvious goal of undercutting (and ultimately destroying) every one of our gains. Maggie tries to flip this script because she wants equality activists to be seen as the antagonists on the wrong side of history. She calls homosexuality itself into question because she operates from a deep sense of Catholicism that sees both gays and their supporters as "committing several kinds of very serious sins" and feels it is her faithful duty here on Earth to oppose what she sees as immoral. She and NOM work to pit certain groups against one another so that they can sneakily divide and conquer, not only on marriage policy, but on conservative issues as a whole. The sum of the parts fosters a dangerously inadequate world that callously disregards the well-being of a rich and vibrant population of people. At some point, Maggie has to take responsibility for all this!

Look, I don't need an enemy. I don't want an enemy. In fact, I, someone who has likely written more about Maggie Gallagher than any other American in the past four years, don't consider Maggie to be my enemy, nor do I use words like "bigot" to reference her heart or her character. But I do strongly oppose her work because I, a legally married gay man who has been told by Maggie that she would like to divorce me if she had the option, know what she is trying to do to my family! I fight the Maggie Gallagher agenda because my family is not a "symbol," my marriage is not a "social issue," and the conversation surrounding my rights is not Maggie's personal retirement fund.

Maggie Gallagher chose this, a career that would not exist in a more perfect world. I chose to work towards what I see as that more perfect world. Maggie is confident of how this will play out, ultimately:

I'll leave those other-world judgments to her. It's my and Maggie's shared community of humans who get to determine what our "culture war" engagement means for each of our mortal world legacies.

@scottrose:"Not only does Maggie Gallagher disparage gay people as being sexually disabled, she has based a career on maintaining and/or strengthening a system of sexual orientation apartheid, wherein heterosexuals, only, and not homosexuals, may marry a person of their own sexual orientation."Now now, don't you read what Daughter of Eve at NOMBlog says? You're perfectly welcome to marry another homosexual person, as long as that person is of the opposite sex.She then talks about how allowing same-sex marriage makes the kind of sham marriages she recommends easier and how that's a bad thing.Maybe you shouldn't listen to her after all.

Posted by Pat on 2012-05-17 11:57:58

So if Maggie believes "...that when pushback is directed at her, it's not really directed at her personally, but rather 'the millions of decent, loving, law-abiding Americans' who 'have this view and this understanding of marriage.'"than who does she think *she* is targeting?

Posted by Pat on 2012-05-17 11:47:59

The only people who even care about Maggie Gallagher are those who are either fervently for or fervently against marriage equality. The large majority see through hucksters like Gallagher and her smarmy "nice" act. Americans don't like being preached at, and Gallagher is a very recognizable American type, a caricature really, the smug, comfortably padded con artist with Bible in hand.

This is why NOM must resort to scare tactics involving children, spurious cases of reverse discrimination, and empty, often outrageous, lies when they press their case. They persuade no one, now that the jig is up, that is after the unrelenting trashing they took in the Prop 8 case. As we saw in the exacting testimony during that trial, NOM and its ilk can never make their case with evidence or win an argument by reason.

Posted by John Calendo on 2012-05-17 11:43:35

I wrote to Maggie to ask why felons who have committed rape, pedophelia, etc. serving life sentences in prison are not the targets of marriage bans. They fit the description she puts out, except they are actual perverts who have affected someone else's life negatively.I'm shocked I haven't heard a response from this clearly concerned citizen.

Posted by Brittany on 2012-05-17 11:31:09

WHAT MAKES MAGGIE GALLAGHER AN ANTI-GAY BIGOT?aggie Gallagher very frequently gets up on her high bigot's horse, demanding not to be known as an anti-gay bigot.

The next time you hear her do that, bring this post to the world's attention.

Here are, enumerated, some, but most certainly not all qualities of an anti-gay bigot, along with examples of when Maggie Gallagher has exhibited them:

Not only does Maggie Gallagher disparage gay people as being sexually disabled, she has based a career on maintaining and/or strengthening a system of sexual orientation apartheid, wherein heterosexuals, only, and not homosexuals, may marry a person of their own sexual orientation.

3) An anti-gay bigot feels entitled to tell malicious lies against gay human beings, in order to inflame anti-gay hatreds in other anti-gay bigots.

Maggie Gallagher has endlessly told malicious anti-gay lies, and then lied about having told those lies.

4) An anti-gay bigot feels entitled to keep gay people living in fear of violence.

Maggie Gallagher has sponsored anti-gay hate rallies where her NOM-approved speakers have told mobs of anti-gay bigots that homosexuals are "worthy to death."

5) An anti-gay bigot finds varied ways to convey the message that "The only good gay is a dead gay."

Maggie Gallagher promotes a NOM fund-raising video with Florida public school teacher Jerry Buell, who told his class that homosexuals should be allowed to serve in the military, with heterosexual troops deserting them from behind.

6) An anti-gay bigot teems up with anti-gay bigots in government, to keep gay human beings living in fear of violence.

At one anti-gay hate rally where a NOM-approved speaker told a mob of anti-gay bigots that homosexuals are "worthy to death," Senator reverend Ruben Diaz, Sr. looked on smiling. Maggie Gallagher has described Diaz as her "hero."

7) An anti-gay bigot will go to extraordinary lengths to use the levers of political power to keep gay human beings living in fear of violence.

Maggie Gallagher speaks in glowing terms of NOM's mastermind Robert George, who is also a Board member of the Family Research Council, an SPLC-certified anti-gay hate group. When Congressman Brad Sherman proposed a resolution against the "Kill the Gays" law in Uganda, Gallagher's friends at the Family Research Council spent $25,000 lobbying against the resolution, on the grounds that it constituted "pro-homosexual promotion." Maggie Gallagher says that she "cherishes" working with the Family Research Council. Maggie Gallagher and her fellow anti-gay bigots believe that one can not risk a resolution against a "Kill the Gays" law, because to do so would constitute "pro-homosexual promotion." This is just a variation on Maggie Gallagher's best loved theme: "The Only Good Gay is a Dead Gay." (Homosexuals are "worthy to death" yelled during a Gallagher-approved anti-gay hate rally; q.v.; Jerry Buell/NOM video begging for gay-bashing blood money; public school teacher Buell says gays should serve in military, at front lines with hetero soldiers deserting them from behind. q.v.

Gallagher as usual did not address the actual reasons she is considered a malicious interloper in other people's human rights.

She told you, for example, that she isn't willing to live in an America where people can not say that children do best when raised by a mother and father.

What she didn't tell you there, is that she has also published an article in which she said she wasn't willing to live and raise a child in a country that had anti-discrimination protections for gay people.

In other words, Gallagher is fine with the status quo of LGBT human beings getting discriminated against on all of the most basic aspects of life.

Her organization sponsors hate rallies where her speakers tell crowds that homosexuals are "worthy to death." It makes fund-raising videos with public school teachers who do things like telling their classes that gays should be allowed to serve in the military, at the front lines with hetero soldiers deserting them from behind.

That is why Gallagher is considered a villain.

She also tells unending lies, and then refuses ever to address the fact that she has lied, over and over again, with malicious ends against gay human beings:The endless anti-gay lies of the National Organization for Marriage’s Maggie Gallagherhttp://pamshouseblend.firedogl...

Gallagher loves to play victim -- especially over being called an anti-gay bigot; to understand why her victims consider her an anti-gay bigot, go here:WHAT MAKES MAGGIE GALLAGHER AN ANTI-GAY BIGOT?http://antigaybigotryscaresme....

Regarding Gallagher's ceaseless gay-bashing of gay parents raising children -- here is one example of why that makes her a villain. One story — of people I know personally — puts the lie to Gallagher's outrageous allegation that child welfare is contingent on oppression of gays.

The three-year-old boy lost his heterosexual parents to an auto accident. His gay uncle and the uncle’s male spouse were at the hospital the day the baby was born. They cherished him as though he were their own baby. His parents had designated the married gay uncles as guardians, should anything happen to them. So the choice would have been between the three-year-old boy being raised by loving family members who happen to be a gay married couple, or farming the child out to a foster care system. Anybody in their right mind will think that the child should be raised by his married uncles. Gallagher, however, believes that that child should be legally disadvantaged, only because of Gallagher’s selfish contempt for gay people’s human rights.

Putting aside for a moment that marriage rights and parenting rights are separate issues (not all hetero married couples wishing to adopt, for example, wind up being allowed to adopt), Gallagher's experience with her own first son would seem to undermine her argument that gay human beings must at all costs not be allowed to marry, because children do best, according to Gallagher, with a mother and a father. Her son Patrick never even knew his father, had no father around when growing up, and yet appears to have turned out reasonably well. Patrick can't necessarily be said, that I can see, to have turned out better or worse than Zach Wahls, yet for some reason, Gallagher believes she has a right to legally disadvantage Zach's family. That certainly does make her a villain -- she is motivating others through irrational bigotry -- bullying non-acceptance of gay human beings -- to beat down on the minority and to do sadistic harm to a loving family. And, as happens, Gallagher is a horrible mother. Her younger son gay bashes on Facebook, showing that he is infected with her bigotry. Here is the article MAGGIE GALLAGHER IS A CRAPPY MOTHER:http://antigaybigotryscaresme....

Sincerely,

Scott Rose

Posted by scottrose on 2012-05-17 10:28:34

"Maggie then parlays all of this into a claim that we are moving toward an America where people like her "may have to be afraid.""

I already live in an America where people like me have to be afraid. Thanks to people like HER.